You've been careless
by Mkass13
Summary: Jack Harkness meets someone after the 456 that gives him hope.


**All characters are property of BBC and Torchwood.**

He knew it was the TARDIS engines as soon as he heard them materialize.

Jack Harkness snapped his head up, staggering slightly. He hadn't heard those engines in years. So many years. The blue box materialized out of nowhere, and Jack staggered against the wall.

The door opened and a man with a bowtie stepped out. His hair flopped to one side and he was wearing a tweed jacket. Jack blinked. This wasn't the Doctor. Not the Doctor he knew.

"You've been careless," the not Doctor figured said firmly, crossing his arms. "How many deaths are you up to now? Just in the past week? Have we topped a hundred yet?"

Jack hated everything in this man's voice. Where was he when he was needed? Anywhere to be found? No. He didn't help. Jack had lost everything that day. Everything that had mattered to him, ripped from his grasp. "Shut up," Jack murmured, looking away from the man.

"Harkness," the man says firmly, and Jack snapped his head up again. "You need to be more careful. You don't know when your immortality will run out."

How dare this man. This _new _ man. Regenerated man. He didn't know. Didn't know what Jack had been through. The memories came flying past. The 456. Ianto dying in his arms. Begging for Jack not to forget him. Steven shaking, bleeding from his nose and ears. The noise he made while dying. The look on Alice's face when she saw Steven dead. Wetness formed in his eyes, but he blinked it back. It had been six months for him, six moths of drinking, getting is bar fights, and dying. He didn't regret any minute of it. Because when he was dead, he couldn't feel the pain.

"He wouldn't like you to be like this," the tweed clad man says, softly this time. "Ianto wouldn't want you living like this."

At the mention of his former lover's name, Jack snapped his head up. How dare he. He didn't know. He didn't even _know_. Pushing himself off the wall, he took a few steady steps towards the Doctor, and grabbed him by the lapels. "I said, _shut. Up_," Jack hissed. "Where the fuck where you? You go around, playing _God_, but when the Earth _really_ needs you, you're nowhere to be found."

The Doctor just stays quiet, staring at the broken man. Then he does the one thing that Jack can't stand. He nods. He _nods_, as if that's going to fix everything. Take back everything he's done.

Jack's fist connects with the man's cheek, making the man stagger a bit. But he doesn't say anything. With fuels Jack's anger. He shoves the Doctor back, making him slam into the TARDIS doors.

"Where were you?" Jack roars, the anger overflowing him, almost choking him. "You were needed, can't your fancy Time Lord intuition sense that? Can't the TARDIS figure that out? Don't you even_ care_ about the humans you say you _defend_?"

The Doctor just stands then, staring straight through him. As if he can see something Jack can't. As if he's searching for something familiar. The old Jack who cared. The old Jack who flung sex innuendos everywhere. That Jack is gone. That Jack died with Ianto Jones.

"Say something!" He screams at the tweed man. "Try to explain yourself. Say _something_, _anything_!" A sob breaks through Jack's chest, the pain from the past six months finally breaking through. The dam he built shatters.

"I'm sorry, the Doctor says softly.

"That's _it_?" Jack cries, staggering against the wall again. "So many people_ died_, Doctor. People who didn't deserve it!" He mind rushes to Steven, his grandson, his little soldier. Then to Ianto. His lover. His one thing that made him slow down, settle. See the world differently. Have faith in humans again.

But that died. All of it died when Ianto breathed for the last time. When his eyes shut for eternity. When the last breath he ever took exited his lungs. When the heart, the heart that Jack cared for _so much_, the heart that Jack didn't ever want to see hurt, stopped beating.

Jack sinks down the wall, burying his face in his knees. In the long six months, he hadn't cried once. Whenever he felt the sadness creeping up on him, he reached for scotch, whiskey or vodka, drank punched and shot himself until the pain was gone. He had died so many times, running and stumbling away from the darkness that threatened to consume him.

He heard the few tentative steps forward, and then felt someone slide down the wall next to him. A hand on his shoulder. His sobs broke for a minute, treasuring the contact of just someone being near again. Caring for him again. Because as much as Jack hated to admit it, he needed someone. To tell him to slow down, to think.

"Jack," the man says softly, squeezing his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I am so very sorry I wasn't around. To help. I should have been. It was my mistake, Jack. I don't have a reason."

"I wish you did," Jack chokes out, finally looking up at the Doctor. "We can't go back and change it, can we?"

The Doctor bites his lip and shakes his head. "Fixed point. Something that has to happen."

Jack sighs and looks back down at the ground. Ianto was always meant to die. And there was nothing he could really do about it. Once he joined Torchwood, he was going to die. "You regenerated," he says slowly, wanting to take the topic off of him.

The Doctor nods once. "Radiation. I saved Donna's grandfather."

"I knew something was wrong with you the last time I saw you." At the bar. Drinking himself away. Jack manages a wiry smile and looks up at the Doctor. "Guess I know what it looks like when a man is dying."

The Doctor just smiles in return, clapping Jack on the shoulder and standing.

"You're leaving?" Jack asks. _Take me with you_. He just wants to get away.

"Oh, you'll see me again, Harkness," the Doctor says, smiling when he reaches the doors, turning around. He smiles and grips the door handle. "Just…keep your eyes on the sky. Look out for me."

Jack smiles. He actually smiles for the first time in six months. He feels an odd twinge in his chest, and realizes…it's hope. He's feeling hope. "Thanks, Doc."

The Doctor nods once, and steps in the TARDIS. It makes the familiar and painful sounds, vanishing before his eyes. Scrubbing at his eyes, he stands. Tonight he wouldn't drink. Tonight he would remember. Tonight Jack Harkness would feel alive.


End file.
